A Thousand Little Injuries
by KMSaum
Summary: All of them had faltered, at one point or another. Adversity builds character and the Inner Circle is chock full of it. These are the thousands of little injuries that make them unique. Different characters each time. Suggestions welcome! Chap 2: Sera - Damn Cliffs and Mage-bits
1. Cole - Learning

**A Dozen Little Injuries**

**The goal of this series is just to explore the Inner Circle, the Inquisitor, and the many little hurts and successes that make the lot of them so damn compelling. Will focus on many characters in the story...not sure just what who all that might mean. Reviews and suggestions are most welcome! Your wish is...something something ;)**

_**Cole - Learning**_

He heard it in their voices, to the last, when he'd first met them. The hesitation, the doubt...the fear. Ugly, raw feelings that clawed at him, made his edges blur, made him want to sink back into the shadows and stay there, invisible until the pain of a passerby pulled him from his personal prison. Fixing the hurts made him happy; fading afterwards made him safe. As Haven (and Skyhold after) get more and more full, he finds no shortage of work to do and yet...

He started off in the shadows most of the time, keeping to himself and his calling, fading and forgetting so that he doesn't fall. He heard their thoughts on him, the staff, the soldiers, when the fear touched their hurts, laced and languished in their thoughts. He heard their whispers about him, too, hidden sometimes, blantant sometimes, much simpler to come across as they were sent to him without his wanting. It was hard not to shrink back, those days.

He heard it in the Inner Circle, from each companion in turn, one way or another, this ring of people he wasn't allowed to hide from. He heard it in the Seeker, faithful and fiery, righteous and resolute, when she assured him she'd cut him down, though he felt her flutter of confusion when he agreed. He heard it in Solas's academic questioning, his kindness that does not quite reach the heavy history lurking in the elf's head. He heard it in Sera's appalled squawking, heard it when he asked Dorian a question he shouldn't have the first, second...tenth time. (The "shouldn't have" was an understanding that came later, _much _later, a result of his learning and growing more human.) He felt the wounds pull wider in the man's mind when he asked, not understanding, not remembering.

As he learns, he thinks he hurts Dorian the worst. They dance, he and the mage, but Cole always missteps, does _something _wrong but never fully grasps what. He just wants to understand. Varric helps, is patient with him; Dorian stops him more often than not, says he's sorry. Bull shudders, a mountain of muscle set aquiver by _him_, or others like him...it is hard to tell, some days. He always tries again, though, and The Bull does, too, a little at a time. Learning isn't easy for any of them.

He doesn't remember well enough to know when it starts to shift, but it does. Cole sees it in her first: the Inquisitor. Trevelyan, always questioning if he is OK, flipping his role back on him, a mirror against a mirror against something less brutal than the Fade. Cole doesn't understand, not fully, but he feels the trepidation for him in little whispers among many others, tangled and twisted around her heart. He tries to fix it for her, once, but she just smiles and gives him a hug. "No need to worry for me, Cole. I have you, and the others. You just keep helping those that need it. Keep being _you._" She hadn't called him a demon, or even a spirit. To her he was just Cole, and he knewat that moment that, for her, being himself was enough.

There is a flood of some hot, tingling, _joyous_ emotion he is not used to, the day Sera yelps that she'll shaft an arrow-ok, three-into his creepy little eyes. _His_ eyes_._ It is everything he can do to not seize her hands and dance, but he remembers she is very bad at it. Her scowl is ferocious, eyebrows drawn down in a point beneath her jagged bangs, but there is no fire behind it.

Varric calls him kid. He has a nickname, just like the others, the same and yet not the same. To Cole it sounds of siblings, of friends and family, a moniker and a meaning he doesn't miss. He likes it. He wonders if he should tell Varric so. Ultimately, he decides not to, but the dwarf already knows.

There is a more solid personal memory, one he gains by accident while he is out on a mission with the Inquisitor. None of them had seen the Red Templars battened down in the heavy underbrush in the Graves, not in the multicolored fading light of the sunset. They were heading back to the camp, close but not close enough, when their assailants launched as one out of the shadows, a dozen or more hulking, twisted abominations of steel and bloody red. He dances in darkness, fading into shadow, a glimmering knifepoint slicing an archer from ear to ear as he draws back to lodge an arrow in the Inquisitor. The man gurgles, topples lifeless, and Cole is gone again, billow of soft smoke shielding as his daggers pick their next target. He comes out of the haze feet first, slamming between a Defender's heavily armored shoulders and burying both knives in the small gap at the nape of his throat. Veridium and iron slide between muscle and bone, kissing the vital breath below the clavicle.

He misses the second Defender on his left, feels the mistake as a double-bladed broadsword strikes at him. His mind is fast enough to move him from death, but not completely; he feels himself start to bleed.

_He didn't used to scar. A Seeker's sword, swift and striking, slicing his shoulder, impaling him in the dank shadow of a sewer. Slipping, slammed down, once, twice, again, hearing the whimper of a friend and knowing he had to get up._ That hurt had been worse, he knew it had been, and yet right now it doesn't seem so. His breath hitches in his chest and he stumbles, falling back from a second strike from the Defender. Someone far off screams his name but they are too slow. Cole sees the enemy advance, vision oddly tunneled, and learns he is too slow, too.

Fortunately, The Iron Bull is not. He roars like a wild thing, catching the Red Templar's blade on the shaft of his warhammer and kicking the man away so hard Cole is sure he hears the breastplate creak as it buckles inward. It may be that he hears it in the Templar's hurts but The Bull crushes the man's helmet, head and all, a moment later, and he can't be sure.

Movement on his right; three more archers and he still can't move. He is afraid, he knows, and laments a little that he is real enough to be scared. Tries to move, to fade, but can't, his own hurts too real to be ignored just then. Shafts notch to bowstrings, two of them trained on him and the third The Bull, striking at a new opponent behind a thicket. Cole wants to cry out and can't.

A whisper of silk and the sigh of a staff in motion, the sweeping spread of his arms and the flare of fire as Dorian's clear voice raises a Wall of Fire directly beneath the three archers. Cole is close enough to see the sweat on the mage's forehead, to hear the song as the fire leaps higher. The Veil swirls around the Tevinter mage like a shroud, beckoned by his boasting and enthralled by the energy he directs with precision. Some mages toil, dragging magic to them, forcing it, tolerating it. Dorian _commands _it, caresses it, all flare and elegance and whispers and roars. Normally he smirks, confident in casting, proud of his power. Cole is worried to see no such smile as the mage kneels by him, slamming his staff earthward both to hold it there and to solidify the Barrier he's just cast around the two of them.

"Cole, can you hear me?" He can, but the song is _loud_, and it's not Dorian's this time. Grey eyes find his own as dark hands press a wad of cloth against his side.

"_Bleeding but not broken, awake but not aware." _It isn't easy to speak, but he knows he is not dying. He needs to tell the mage that. "I am OK, Dorian. My side hurts." The man lets out a laugh that is more of surprise than mirth; either way the sound doesn't reach his eyes. Warm green light is pouring over them both, now, and Cole can feel the Inquisitor's worry for him as she advances. She is there, very suddenly, bright and lovely and worn and worried. He sees her like this often, but she is not usually looking at him.

"How is he, Dorian?" The healing aura is hers, then. The Tevinter nods.

"Well enough, all things considered. I think. Not always easy to tell." Dorian grimaces and bows markedly to the side as one of The Iron Bull's massive hands whomps down onto his shoulder, a friendly gesture, albeit a tense one.

"It'll take more than some Templar asshole to put him down for good," he boasts loudly, ignoring the scowling glare Dorian fires up at him. "Isn't that right, kid?" The three of them look at him and Cole, for all that his side _still_ hurts, smiles and nods.

Learning isn't easy, but the memories of moments like this one-of belonging, of friends-are definitely worth it.

_There's the first one! Please review if you enjoyed, I'd LOVE to hear your thoughts and comments. Criticism welcome (constructive, preferably, but if you have a bad day and need to flame me, go for it!) I'll aso entertain prompts, never know what will strike and be fun to write. :) Thanks for your time!_

_-K-_


	2. Sera - Damn Cliffs and Mage-bits

**Sera - Damn Cliffs & Mage-bits**

_**Thanks so much for everyone who reviewed! I fixed my tenses in this one per one very helpful comment. ;) For now I am going to keep trying to explore more of the earlier times when the party didn't get along as well. I could see Sera being hard-headed enough to refuse magic even when badly hurt. She is tough to write, though, so we'll see. PS, my Inquisitor's name is Lara, short dark brown hair (chin length) with blue-grey eyes. Has a Squall scar that runs up between her eyes, diagonal over the bridge of her nose. In case you care :)**_

Oh but it was shite outside, what with the intermittent rain storms and the incessant wind and the Maker-damned lightning that struck so close by it made their teeth rattle. The Storm Coast's weather was not the best thing for their moods, Dorian's and Sera's least of all. The former looked as grumpy as a wet cat, sullen and sulking, normally perfect hair dripping down into his eyes; the latter was spitting like the same, swearing at such length that Cassandra finally got fed up and shouted "_ENOUGH!_" so loudly that a nearby ram tumbled from a cliff. a handfull of skirmishes as they ascended into the cliffs, though, and the Seeker found a different topic to push her energy towards. The elf noticed, snarl curling her lip up as she saw the grin on the other woman's face.

"You're smirking again, like in that fight before. What's so funny?" The Seeker smiled, a chuckle sneaking past her normally serious visage.

"Just now, the simplest spell had you white as a sheet! I have shrugged off worse than that in practice. The Tevinter scared you witless when he _lit his staff_ so we could see inside that cave, before." Dorian, behind them, made a wounded face that Trevelyan saw and snickered at, albeit behind her hand as Sera caught her and glared.

"Now now, careful Lady Seeker, lest I take this as a challenge," the mage proffered, ever the gallant instigator. Sera ignored him, still focused on Cassandra's taunts.

"Yeah well, sorry I'm scared of the stuff I been warned about _my whole life_. Like most people who aren't Seekers," the elf growled, referring to the spell-casting Dorian and Lara did perpetually and with which she was clearly not comfortable. The Seeker noted the sudden seriousness in Sera's normally flippant tone and, oddly, nodded and backed off.

"I apologize." Cassandra pondered a moment. "I could help, if you're willing."

"Pffft, _no._ I have things to do. You can help by standing in front of me."

Cassandra chuckled. "Very well. That I can do."

Right around two hours later, Sera had fallen off a cliff.

Twisted, backing up from an incoming enemy, she fell right the hell off of steep ledge on the Coast, bouncing off of stones and outcroppings the entire way down. She peppered the moist air with swears and cursing (_you bet your smarmy ass those two were distinct, in her case, oh yes_)_, _with the addition of one very poignant _snap_ as she landed at the foot of the drop.

"Ow ow ow _ow,_ shite." Sera looked down at the blood spreading up her painfully loud, yellow Plaidweave leggings, saw a bit of off-white poking through her skin to peek up her. A breeze rustled the leaves, a gust that she _felt _on the exposed marrow of the shin bone; a whisper on her skin, a flare of pain to her injured leg. The elf gagged as her lunch bounced off the back of her teeth. "_Shite._" It was a moment of quiet, just her and her stupid shin bone poking out into the world like an ugly streaker at last call...unwanted in general and even less fun for the people who had to get the offending party back inside where it belonged. Sera concentrated on breathing-_In, Out, In, Out, right_- and on trying to quiet the _screaming_ of her bloody leg and the thousand poker-stabs of fire lacing up every inch of the appendage.

Several long minutes later, she could no longer hear the sounds of fighting from above her, up in the wrecked house where they'd failed to find the missing soldiers. For one really, _really_ uncomfortable moment, she wondered if they'd left her behind. Part of her got it, right before the rest of her got really, _really_ pissed off. _Maybe shite nobles came 'round to their asshattery and decided I wasn't worth the bloody trouble..._

A twig snapped loudly on her right, almost made her jump. The grumbling she heard identified the advancing party as a friendly and not an enemy. Sera sighed in relief even as she groaned, hearing an educated, crisp tone approaching. "Ah, here you are."

The elf let out a rude noise, mushing her tongue between her lips and blowing, hard. A certain Tevinter mage was picking his way through the tangled underbrush, well-formed nose scrunched up in disgust at the mud, the rocks, and the unnecessary number of plants. He looked up at her, disdain fading quickly into concern. The mage saw her leg and immediately advanced with purpose, staff lowered and one hand glowing green. Sera paled and shrunk back against the mossy, slippery rock.

"Get your tool out of my face, mage-bits," Dorian stopped cold, surprised, head cocked to one side. The fierceness in her eyes reached him then and he sighed and raised his hands, backing up a step in honor of her wishes. He had an odd look on his face. "Don't need your flashy nonsense. I got this." The woman scooted backwards on her bum, bracing herself against the cliff face before pushing herself upright with her good leg.

Dorian looked ill, glancing between her not-so-good leg and her face as he processed her ill-conceived plan.

"Sera, I don't think..." He was right, she didn't; her balance started to go and she tried to correct with the bad leg and was instantly falling again, face bloodless and swearing at the lightning bolt that leapt up from below her knee.

Or she would have been, had she not smacked face-first into a well-muscled chest swathed in silk and leather, albeit all of the above were drenched by rain. Lost for a better thing to do (while she swallowed the outright cry of pain from her _stupidshiteass trying to stand up_), she burrowed her little, roundish nose into those folds of cloth, ensnared by the mage's scent.

"You smell like an expensive, soggy pie."

"What, pray tell, does a _soggy pie_ smell like?" Dorian questioned, elegant tone dripping with proper consternation. From his face he was clearly none too thrilled to hear the answer. He pulled Sera back slightly, bracing her forearms to keep her upright.

"Erm, I dunno...it's like spices and wine, all yummy and such, but some arse left the window open and the silk tablecloth and the pastries got wet." She looked thoughtful, eyes off into the distance, and missed Dorian's wide-eyed staring at her in wonder. She did eventually notice the lack of retort, finally screwing her face up into a look before asking, "_What?_"

The mage opened and closed his mouth twice, closed it again, glanced away, and finally shook his head, dumbfounded and at a loss.

"...a soggy pie."

"Still edible though, innit?" She offered, complimentary. "Better than smelling of dog shite, yeah?" Dorian's laugh caught them both by suprise and was sincere and full-throated; Sera couldn't help but grin a little, even though she was sweating and pale. Stupid leg was still bleeding.

"Quite." He looked at her, _really_ looked at her, then, dazzling smile fading. He had good teeth, for a demon factory. "Olfactory discussions aside, I need to see to your leg."

Well THAT was a sure way to ruin the moment they were having.

"You really _are_ frightened of me, aren't you." A statement, not a question. Sera is not The Iron Bull and doesn't quite fully grasp his tone, but neither is she so dense as to miss the change in him just then. Not even past the screaming of her stupid leg bone out in the STUPID AIR hurting like a STUPID SHITE BITC IN T H E-

"Not _you,_ you daft tit, your magic business. Throwing fire from the hands and all that? Not okay," she swallowed hard, looking down and away, shuddering slightly. "..._You_ you is...well enough, though, I s'pose." A pause. "I just don't like the mage bits." She waggled her fingers at his robes and staff as she said it, indicating 'all this.' The Tevinter blanched, just a little, ever so slightly.

"I am not certain there is anything _past_ those 'mage-bits,' my dear," a small sigh, "but I will not force them on you, regardless." Voices, then, and they both looked up to see Cassandra and the Inquisitor heading their way. While the archer was otherwise occupied, the mage scooped her carefully into his arms, managing to suppress his wince at the stream of swears that assaulted his ear. Dorian started forward at the same time Lara's face scrunched up in concern. She started forward but was rebuffed by a well-educated voice. "Save the magic, my dear Herald. We will need to see to this the old fashioned way."

If mage-bits heard Sera's small sigh of relief, he was smart enough to keep it to himself.

_Yes, so, I am in love with Dorian and am trying to get more familiar with writing him. He is ALWAYS in my party so a lot of these scenarios include him. Do please bear with me on that front._

_Suggestions welcome ;)_


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